Guidelines for Email Designs that Get Results

Guidelines for Email Designs that Get Results 

Emails alone are not always enough to get your readers to open them, even when they've signed up to receive them. However, the right email design helps capture the receiver's attention, which increases the chance it gets read. It also makes readers want to share the content with others, which in turn helps drive traffic to your site, which search engines love.

Various components go into effective email design, which begins with the right layout, before incorporating a few other details that work together to enhance your design, which we will examine in the following guidelines based on tried and true email designs at work, and they are useful for both emails and email newsletter designers.

The Best Email Designs Have a Simple Layout

The more white space your layout utilizes to help separate columns, texts, images, and other elements, the easier it is for readers to skim your email, which increases the likelihood they will read it. A simple layout also helps keep their focus as no busy elements are competing for their attention, which can hinder them from engaging in the email to the end.

The content should be well organized and neatly arranged into a vertical hierarchy, which lets readers know the order in which the page should be read. If needed, pops of color or different font sizes or picture sizes can be strategically placed throughout to add interest or to let readers know what's more important. You can also create contrast with your texts by using larger pixels, such as 22 pixels for headline texts, and smaller pixels, such as 14 pixels, for the body texts to help grab the reader's attention.

The Best Email Designs are Compatible Across All Devices

One column emails naturally display prominent elements and big fonts, which makes them readable on both desktops as well as mobile devices. They are also easy to navigate without overwhelming the reader. Alternatively, you could opt for a responsive email design for greater assurance it will work correctly on mobile devices, which studies show is quickly becoming the primary way people are accessing their emails.

The Best Email Designs are Careful With Color

When it comes to selecting colors for your email, it is essential to remember that different colors invoke different emotions and feelings; therefore, you want to choose colors that complement your message, brand, or identity.

If you have a company logo, select colors based on your logo, which will enable it to stand out and improve your company's recognition.

Some companies are even experimenting with dark color colors, which allows the content to read well in dim light or at night. However, you should avoid using too many colors because it can make it difficult to focus on the content. Likewise, you should also avoid colors that are too creative as it might come off as weird to readers.

The Best Emails Designs Have Simple Fonts

There are many different fonts available; however, some of them can be overwhelming for web reading. Therefore, you should stick to basic fonts, such as Arial, Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Georgia, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Palatino, and Museo Slab, for easy reading.

The Best Email Designs Contain Personalized Content

Emails specifically catered to the receiver increases engagement, which helps ensure your messages get across. It also helps ensure they are opened and clicked on. As a matter of fact, studies show that more than 80% of marketers reported an increase in opened emails after making them more personalized. Therefore, when designing your email campaign, be sure to keep it one-on-one for best results.

The Best Email Designs Have Beautiful Imagery

Crisp, stunning imagery enhances your marketing content, which helps makes it more appealing to your readers, so take time to incorporate beautiful imagery into your email campaign.

The images, which can be stock images, video, GIF, animation, infographics, and more, should complement your message as opposed to just incorporating several different images for the sake of it. The images should also be true to your brand to be effective. Your text should also still be able to stand on its own without the images to be effective.

As a rule of thumb, choose images that have two times bigger resolution to correctly display on higher-resolution screens. Your image files should be kept small to ensure they will open on mobile devices; otherwise, they can take a long time to load.

The Best Email Designs Include Alt-Text With Images

Alt-text is alternative text that provides some details about what your image is in the event the image fails to load. When images fail to load, usually because they are blocked or turned off by default, a broken image or a red X is displayed in its place.

However, with alt-text, viewers will see an indication that there is an image along with a bit of information about the image to encourage readers to click on it.

The Best Email Designs Have Compelling Call-to-Actions

With all the effort you've put into designing an effective email, it would be a shame to not benefit from a call-to-action. Therefore, be sure to include a compelling call-to-action that your readers can easily locate. For instance, using contrasting colors or texts for CTA buttons helps them stick out and encourages readers to click. Or, you could include more than one call-to-action button within your content to grab your reader's attention and inspire action.

The Best Email Designs Have a Great Subject Line

Your email, no matter how good it is, is nothing without an intriguing subject line that gets it opened. So, though it is not considered part of the email design, you still want to ensure you spend time creating a subject line that is catchy and personal to inspire readers to click on it to reap the rewards of your email.

Now that you have the key elements that go into effective email designs, just be sure to keep them balanced to ensure they work as they should, which will help get your message across. You should also include inquiries with your emails to help make your content more personalized. Once you get the hang of designing your emails, you can experiment with different colors and layouts for added impact, which is especially great during the holidays or special events. You could also hire a professional web design company to create your emails and distribute them for added confidence and ease. 

About the Author

Craig Corbel is the VP of Marketing at Solution Web Designs, an award-winning email newsletter marketing agency. Learn more about their web and online marketing services by visiting SolutionWebDesigns.com